Ideas Why Punishing Downloaders Won't Work "The urge to cast downloading as a kind of black-and-white moral issue that simply needs to be made plain to the kids so that they will knock it off is understandable, but it's also wishful thinking. An estimated 60 million people have downloaded songs illicitly, which makes the phenomenon bigger than a youth fad. It's more like speeding or marijuana use - activities that many people in a wide range of ages know are 'wrong' in a technical sense but not in a behavioral sense. By now, even if the music industry is right on the legal argument, it can't win the moral one." The New York Times 09/21/03 Posted: 09/21/2003 10:05 pm Visual Arts Sydney Opera House Gets An Original Completion After 30 years, the iconic Sydney Opera House is having its interior redone by its original architect. Joern Utzon, now 85, was thrown off the project before the building was complete, and some of the interior was completed by others. Now he is getting the chance to see some of his original ideas take shape... Sydney Morning Herald 09/23/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 9:21 am Construction Endangers Taj Mahal "Conservation experts are warning that a massive mound of soil stretching across 72 acres of the banks of the Yamuna river opposite the Taj Mahal could turn into a mudslide and flood the foundations of the 17th-century mausoleum. This disaster waiting to happen is the latest chapter in the sorry story of the mismanagement of the great Islamic building." The Art Newspaper 09/22/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 1:59 am Louvre: Sponsor This The Louvre is looking for sponsors, as one of a series of reforms that requires museums to raise more of their own budgets. "The three main principles of the reforms are to give museums the freedom to manage money from entry tickets; full responsibility for their exhibition and display policies; and freedom to manage their acquisitions policy." The Art Newspaper 09/22/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 1:56 am London's Stab At A Contemporary Fair A new art fair dedicated to contemporary art is opening in London. "It is a momentous occasion because London has never hosted a truly international contemporary art fair before. The fairs that did take place were considered either too provincial or too traditional in content. And there were not, it was argued, enough collectors in the UK to make the journey worthwhile." The Telegraph (UK) 09/22/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 1:32 am Music Another Leeds, Another Pianist...So... Hmnnnnn. There's a new winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition. And he plays well enough. But where is the next Murray Perahia? "Cool competence" doesn't exactly get us running for our credit cards... The Telegraph (UK) 09/22/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 1:35 am EMI To Buy Time Warner Music? Recording giant EMI says it is in talks to buy AOL Time Warner's music business. "British-based EMI, which tried and failed to merge with AOL Time Warner's Warner Music three years ago, stressed that the talks were not advanced and a deal may not materialize." Yahoo! (AP) 09/21/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 1:04 am Lloyd Webber & Elton John Team Up Cellist Julian Lloyd Webber is teaming up with Elton John to record a "classical" version of John's "Your Song." "I got the number of Elton's manager and asked whether he would come on this disc with me. I thought that would be it, but to my surprise he said he would love to do it - as long as it was in E flat major." BBC 09/21/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 12:47 am New World, New Ideas Miami's New World Symphony is a training orchestra that thinks different. "New World places great emphasis on being different, as it performs some of the most edgy repertoire in music. This season, New World will be performing works by John Cage, Steve Reich and Luciano Berio - in a preview of New World's scheduled performance in Rome - and Sibelius' Fifth, works typically never even penciled into a regional orchestra's schedule. 'We have never been in competition with anyone for audiences because we do very few programs. We're not scared of putting on an evening where we only have 300 people there if the repertoire is as extreme as it sometimes can be." Miami Herald 09/21/03 Posted: 09/21/2003 10:10 pm The Rap On The New Hip-Hop "At its core, hip-hop is about bragging; ostentation and one-upmanship have played a crucial role in a music that confers upon its stars the means to walk their talk. In the South, though, a new school of artists has largely rejected such mainstream models. As new albums by Bubba Sparxxx and Nappy Roots demonstrate, country charm is just as viable as urban grit, and these rappers are retrofitting hip-hop to their purposes and experiences." The New York Times 09/21/03 Posted: 09/21/2003 9:53 pm Theatre The NEA's Shakespeare Gambit The National Endowment for the Arts' ambitious new Shakespeare tour begins. "It is the launch of something that could change the political fortunes of the once-embattled, now-neglected national arts agency. NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, at a reception Saturday evening, called the high-profile Shakespeare initiative 'a Hail Mary pass.' Dana Gioia's approach is to try to bring a lot of positive attention, a lot of positive play to the NEA." Washington Post 09/22/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 1:09 am Understanding Kushner "The charge that playwright Tony Kushner’s theater is more pedagoguish than dramatic stems partly from the inability of his accusers to differentiate between a politically charged play and a screed, or between a character and its author. Kushner’s characters may spout diatribes, but his plays, many coming from an Elizabethan tradition, are about the collision of those arguments into a kind of forum. Kushner’s works are composed of conflicts and discussions merging into a skeptical, ironical and often paradoxical vision; a play with a vision can shed some light, whereas a play with an opinion can be merely annoying. It’s helpful to distinguish the two." LAWeekly 09/18/03 Posted: 09/21/2003 10:14 pm Publishing Anger In Kabul (And Now In Europe) Asne Seierstad's book "The Bookseller of Kabul" is a runaway hit. It has "sold more than half a million copies in Scandinavia alone. It has been sold to publishers in 17 countries and came out to rave reviews in Britain last month. It is due out in the US in October, and is the bestselling Norwegian non-fiction book of all time." But the Afghan family on which the book is based is angry at its portrayal and the head of the family is "not only demanding 'compensation' and 'damages', but says that many people, himself included, 'would be happy to see it burned'." The Observer (UK) 09/21/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 9:53 am What's Wrong With The Booker The Booker prize has, for much of its history, been anthrax for the average reader. One thing you could be guaranteed of: you might come out of the experience feeling cleverer, or more high-toned, but you’re unlikely to have had much of an enjoyable time. Furthermore, you are unlikely to have read anything contemporary, or that has anything to say about Britain today. Rather as British art abandoned painting, for decades British writing abandoned story. Plot, good characters and, God forbid, humour, have not only been largely absent from the list of Booker triumphs - they are positively reasons for exclusion, it seems sometimes." The Scotsman 09/21/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 1:20 am Dewey Decimal Sues Hotel "The nonprofit library cooperative that owns the Dewey Decimal system has filed suit against a library-themed luxury hotel in Manhattan for trademark infringement. The Library Hotel, which overlooks the New York Public Library, is divided according to the classification system, with each floor dedicated to one of Dewey's 10 categories. Room 700.003 includes books on the performing arts, for example, while room 800.001 has a collection of erotic literature." Washington Post (AP) 09/22/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 1:12 am Media Time For Movies To Pay For R&D The powerful lucrative movie business gets a lot of its talent from the theatre. "Is there something inherently wrong about one of the world's most powerful industries' being so disconnected from the source of some of its greatest talent? A good part of the entertainment industry's research and development have been in the nonprofit sector, but the bills have not been paid by entertainment conglomerates but through the box office, foundations, local businesses and the taxpayer." Hartford Courant 09/21/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 1:43 am West Wing Wins Emmy The "West Wing" surprises many and wins another Emmy for Best TV drama. "The ceremony was both celebratory and bittersweet, with homage paid to a number of performers and industry figures who died this year, including Bob Hope, John Ritter, Gregory Hines and Fred Rogers." Yahoo! (AP) 09/22/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 1:01 am Dance Scots Ballet's Movement Problem The Scottish Ballet wants to move. But it "has attracted widespread condemnation from the visual arts world after revealing it is applying for lottery cash to convert Tramway 2 - an internationally respected exhibition space which launched the careers of artists such as Roderick Buchanan and Christine Borland - into rehearsal space." The Scotsman 09/21/03 Posted: 09/22/2003 1:23 am